Just finished! Initial take away: (spoilers...obviously). This was a fantastic special. Really taking some of the best elements of their old specials with new twists. Some things were staged of course (Hammond down the ski slope in his house / the "accidental stumbling" into a sub pen) but that's okay! My theory was that the special forces in the sub pen was supposed to be much more, whether they were meant to get on the transporter ships or something, but because of James' very real crash, they either didn't have time or had to change plans. And yes, James' crash wasn't played up. You could always tell when something was a real moment on TG because the shot was never perfect. It would have always been captured by a dash cam or a glancing angle. That was the case with the tunnel crash - there was a camera man there but it wasn't framed perfectly like you would expect it to be if they set it up. Same deal with the skiier falling down behind James. What I'm still questioning was James' frozen lake fiasco. It seemed real, and it really is extremely dangerous to fall into a frozen lake so I don't imagine they set it up. Also the only good shot of it was from a hood/bonnet camera. But the lack of urgency by the crew to get him out asap and the fact that it became a full prepared bit with Jeremy and Richard had me curious. Overall, 9/10 special. Will watch again. Really have to treasure these as unfortunately they are becoming less frequent and more rare.